Africa mobile phone subscriptions

Facet Geo Map

Photo by Muhammadtaha Ibrahim Ma’aji on Unsplash

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna, Nigeria

When you get a mobile phone it is almost like having a card to get out of poverty in a couple of years…
— Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel peace prize

Ingest

continent, country, year, mobile subscriptions

df <- read.csv("archetypes/mobile.csv", header = TRUE, encoding="UTF-8")
df

Wrangle

enrich with ISO2 code

df_wrangle <- df %>% 
  filter(continent == "Africa", year >= 2000) %>%
  # Using countrycode function (from contrycode library) to enrich the dataset with country's ISO2 code
  mutate(iso2 = countrycode(code,
                            origin = "iso3c",
                            destination = "iso2c")) %>%
  select(entity, year, mobile_subs, iso2) %>%
  filter(!is.na(iso2))

df_wrangle

Wrangle

create country grid

# df_countries_grid1 comes from geofacet library
df_grid <- africa_countries_grid1 %>%
  mutate(name = case_when(name == "Central African Republic" ~ "CAF",
                          name == "Republic of the Congo" ~ "COG",
                          name == "Democratic Republic of the Congo" ~ "COD",
                          name == "Equatorial Guinea" ~ "GNQ",
                          name == "São Tomé and Principe" ~ "STP",
                          TRUE ~ name)) %>%
  mutate(code = case_when(name == "Namibia" ~ "NA",
                          TRUE ~ code))

df_grid

Plot

facet geo using ISO2C

theme_opts <- theme(
    text = element_text(family = "inconsolata", size = 16), 
    plot.title = element_text(color = "#E8EADC", size = 24, face = "bold", hjust=0.5, 
                                  margin=margin(30,0,10,0)),
    plot.subtitle = element_text(color = "#E8EADC", size = 20, face = "bold", hjust=0.5, 
                                  margin=margin(0,0,60,0)),
    plot.caption = element_text(color = "#E8EADC", size = 10, face = "bold", hjust=0.5, 
                                  margin=margin(30,0,30,0)),
    plot.background = element_rect(fill = "#1E1D23"),
    strip.background = element_blank(),
    strip.text = element_text(color = "#E8EADC", size = 14, face = "bold"),
    panel.background = element_blank(),
    panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
    panel.grid.major = element_blank(),
    axis.text = element_text(size = 7, color = "#E8EADC"),
    axis.title.x = element_blank()
)

v1 <- ggplot(df_wrangle) +
  geom_rect(aes(xmin = 2000, ymin = 0, xmax = 2017, ymax = 200), fill = "#26262E") +
  geom_area(aes(year, mobile_subs), fill = "#008080") +
  # Map code with iso2 column in main dataframe to create the facet grid
  facet_geo( ~ iso2, grid = df_grid, label = "name") +
  scale_x_continuous(breaks = seq(2000, 2015, by = 5), labels = c("'00", "'05", "'10", "'15")) +
  labs(title = "African Mobile Phone Subscriptions, 2000-2017",
       subtitle = "Mobile subscriptions per 100 people",
       caption = NULL) +
  theme_opts

girafe(ggobj = v1, width_svg = 12, height_svg = 16,
       options = list(opts_sizing(rescale = TRUE, width = 0.7))
)

References

citations for narrative and data sources

Narrative sources: reproduction of an original plot by Yobanny Samano
Data sources: Our World in Data, Technology Adoption, GO